Fish pirates

Rory Blyth is a no good fish pirate.

That's it, that's all I have to say at this stage.

Thanks Google!

About a month or so back I got an email from Google asking for feedback on their AdSense network. Now I've tried it in a couple of places (here and on another blog which I was trialling some ideas out on), so I thought, yeah there's a couple of things that I'd like to say about my experiences and what I thought about their product (which I like by the way).

So I gave my feedback on the survey and promptly forgot about it, till this morning when a package arived for me from Google... Getting very curious while opening this box imagine my surprise when I open it to find a new 80GB iPod!!! :-) I'd been selected to receive 1 of 4 iPods as thanks for giving feedback! How cool is that!

Now I do already have an iPod, though it's a 2nd gen with only 15GB, which doesn't keep it's battery charge so thankyou Google!

B

Back in the UK

Just a real quick post to say hi to everyone and let you all know that we've arrived safe and sound back in the UK, now comes the joy and fun of starting our 'real lives' again.. ;-)

Was an absolute blast spending the last 7 months with everyone, got to see most of you on more than one occasion and I wish all of you lots of fun on your life journeys!

B

Inspirational quote

"It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it."
- Arnold Toynbee

Saw this on my google homepage this morning (I like quotes of the day), myself though I think the phrasing of:

"Aim for the moon, so you may reach the sky"

sums it up more succinctly.

B

The future of news

A fascinating piece on the future of news publishing produced as though it is from 2014... Very cool, watch it.

EPIC 2014

Got my passport back!!

Yay! I'm now allowed back into the UK!! :-) And it now looks like me!

Though had to laugh, cause the guy at the post office asked if I'd been on the biggest loser?!?! Not sure if I should be insulted or just laugh.

Skype = Ok ... ish

Well I got a response from Skype, and while they have lots of excellent reasons for expiring my credit within 180 days (please review our Terms of Service), they have reviewed my case and are re-instating the credit, so Yay!

I still am not happy that they've got the 180 day limit, and have tried to register my concern/complaint/issues in a reasonably polite and friendly way, basically trying to say, yes you're a business as such you can pretty much do as you like, I think you should change what you're doing though cause as a customer I'm more likely to go with someone else if you don't. Of course I'm a minor customer so I don't really know how much they'll really care. I mean in the last year I've only spent 3-4 euros... Definitely on the minor side.

Also I don't like this use of the term 'credit', I think of it as I am purchasing a product, the product isn't the right to call a phone, I am pre-purchasing that phonecall! So if I want to call someone 2 years down the track, you should allow me to! At least that's my opinion, of course commercial reality is something completely different.

Anyways here's that email that I sent back:

Hello Rando,

Just wanted to say thank you for reviewing my case and re-instating my credit. Also thank you for the details on the expiry, I understand why you've imposed that limitation, I was surprised at it being only 180 days. Realising that it's Skype's prerogative to set it's Terms of Service, can you record somewhere that I at least think that it should be of a longer duration? (also what happens to that unclaimed credit? [I've been unable to find any details of where it goes on the Skype pages])

Also want to request that more detailed information be supplied on the 'Help' section of your website, searching for 'Balance Expiration' I was only able to find http://support.skype.com/index.php?_a=knowledgebase&_j=questiondetails&_i=38 which was about 20 or so items down, and didn't provide much detail. Namely what happens after the expiry? (This is a rhetorical question, as I now know what happens, point is that the help section is unclear).

Again thank you for your response, I look forward to continuing to use Skype and will make sure I make use of the phone calls at least once every 180 days.

Sincerely,
Andrew Bickerton